State-run media said Rajapaksa will surely win

Sri Lanka's state-run Daily News said Friday in an editorial written after the presidential election ended late Thursday that incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa was sure of "a comfortable victory".

The English language daily said that Rajapaksa, "despite the hard-headed prejudices of the detractors and the international media is almost guaranteed a comfortable victory".

"An opposition victory, as we write, seems to be a figment of the imaginations of various interested parties," it said.

On Friday, Rajapaksa conceded defeat at the hands of opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena.